![[box cover]](../../reviewimgs/s/sonofthemask.jpg)
Son of The Mask: Platinum Series
Jim Carrey is a star, and no one can replace him. If that seems too bold a statement, it's something that New Line has proven with both 2003's Dumb and Dumberer and 2005's Son of the Mask. In both cases the studio saw franchises, but Carrey became too big an A-lister to return to the earlier films he made successful. As such, the studio decided to spin them off anyway, to laughable box office returns. Son of the Mask is also a disaster because it doesn't ever figure out what it wants to be. Jamie Kennedy plays Tim Avery, a cartoonist looking to get ahead, and when his Jack Russell Terrier (the closest the film comes to a recurring character besides a brief cameo from Ben Stein) finds The Mask, he supposedly turns a Halloween party into a swinging event. It's a sequence, like many in other bad movies, where the energy and enthusiasm that's trying to be conveyed doesn't translate to the screen. Tim then goes home and impregnates his wife while wearing The Mask, which passes The Mask's powers along to his future son. This angers the Norse God of Mischief Loki (Alan Cumming) to no end because his father Odin (Bob Hoskins) sent him to Earth to find The Mask. Now, not only does he not have The Mask, the child having The Mask's powers means… er, something. But after that fateful night, Tim has lost track of The Mask because his dog has had it. And once Tim's son is born, the dog becomes jealous of the baby and tries to get rid of him, leading to Looney Tunes-esque scenarios where the dog becomes Wile E. Coyote to the baby's Road Runner. Tim's son also thinks his dad doesn't love him, so he only uses his powers when Tim's watching and plays limp around anyone else (inspired by the Looney Tunes frog). An absolute mess of a movie, not only is Son of The Mask pointless and witless, it doesn't seem to understand what made the first film work. No one in the film displays any charisma, for a comedy it's laugh-free, and putting babies in threatening positions is just plain discomforting. But it'd be worse if it didn't look like a stinker going in. New Line presents the film as part of its "Platinum Series" in anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1) with Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby 2.0 Surround audio. Extras include a commentary by director Larry Guterman, writer Lance Khazei, and star Kennedy, 19 deleted scenes (running 32 minutes), "Paw Prints and Baby Steps: On the Set of Son of The Mask" (16 min.), "Creating Son of the Mask: Digital Diapers and Dog Bytes" (15 min.), "Chow Bella — Hollywood's Pampered Pooches" (15 min.), three galleries, two storyboard sequences, the film's theatrical trailer, and bonus trailers. Keep-case.
—DSH
